Assistant Professor, Behavioural Ecology Research Group
The purpose of our research program is to use an integrated behavioral-ecological and molecular-genetic approach to study how reproductive behavior evolves in insects. We combine behavioral and ecological observations and experiments with two new and powerful methods for evolutionary analysis: (1) the polymerase chain reaction, which we use in combination with DNA sequencing for (a) generation of phylogenies and (b) development of molecular markers for the analysis of genetic relatedness; and (2) statistical techniques for the quantitative analysis of comparative, phylogenetic data.
We are applying our research program to three of the outstanding problems in evolutionary biology: (1) the evolution of social behaviour, (2) the evolution of across-trophic-level ecological interactions, and (3) the evolution of sex and asexuality.Last Updated 09/23/1999